Nigeria’s Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Mallami (SAN), has ordered security agencies to cover up an ongoing multi-billion naira fraud in Nigeria Incentive-based Risk Sharing System for Agricultural Lending, SaharaReporters has discovered.
SaharaReporters has done series of exclusive stories on how MD of NIRSAL, Aliyu Abduhalmeed, has been siphoning the agency’s money.
In the last story, SaharaReporters published documents of bank accounts and bail bonds showing how the MD’s son, Imran Aliyu, was jailed for money laundering in the United Arab Emirates after his father fraudulently awarded a N2bn ICT contract to him.
However, it has now been discovered that the AGF is frustrating the probe of the fraud and has ordered security agencies to stop the investigation.
The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, Independent Corrupt Practices and other related offences Commission, the State Security Service and Nigeria Intelligence Financial Unit are all to stop investigating the fraud within NIRSAL, the AGF instructed.
In a letter to the Inspector-General of Police, Reference Number: DPPA/NIRSAL/110/20, dated February 4, 2020 and exclusively obtained by SaharaReporters, the AGF, who wrote through the Director of Public Prosecutions, Mohammed U.E, said it was an “unhealthy competition” and “sheer waste of government resources” for agencies of government to probe financial scandal.
The letter reads, “I am directed to inform you that we are in receipt of a petition from the Nigeria Incentive-Based Risk Sharing System For Agricultural Lending (NIRSAL) Referenced NIR/MD/GEN/TAPD/24/20/03 and dated 29th January, 2020 in respect of the above subject-matter. A copy of the petition is hereby attached.
“After a careful study of the petition, we found that NIRSAL is being investigated by several agencies to wit: the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC), the State Security Service (SSS) and Nigeria Intelligence Financial Unit (NIFU) in respect of the same subject-matter which is not only an unhealthy competition among the agencies of the same Federal Government of Nigeria but a sheer waste of government resources.
“All other agencies investigating the matter are to stay further action to allow your office total control of the investigation.”
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